


Home Is Where the Heart Should Be

by HopefulNebula



Series: Alexis at the Warehouse [1]
Category: Castle, Warehouse 13
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Crossover, Families of Choice, Future Fic, Gen, POV Third Person, Present Tense, Snippets
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-26
Updated: 2012-11-26
Packaged: 2017-11-19 14:36:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,156
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/574322
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HopefulNebula/pseuds/HopefulNebula
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Alexis Castle begins a new job in South Dakota, and gets acquainted with her work family. (Warehouse 13/Castle crossover.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Home Is Where the Heart Should Be

**Author's Note:**

> a) Warehouse 13 episodes 4.09 and 4.10 ("The Ones You Love" and "We All Fall Down") NEVER HAPPENED. Or at least, they happened very differently.
> 
> b) This takes place four or five years after season 4 of both shows, after Alexis has graduated college.
> 
> c) Thanks to Finch for looking this over and making sure it doesn't suck. <3

Alexis never wants to hear the word "recalculating" again. Ever. At least she'd had good traffic along the way, so she'll still be early despite having missed her turn four times.

"What would bad traffic be around here, anyway?" she asks herself. "The mail truck passing through?"

If the woman who'd offered her this job hadn't been so specific about the GPS coordinates, Alexis wouldn't have thought this was the right place. But it's the only human-made structure for miles, and the redheaded woman standing by the door is waving her into the parking area, so she supposes she'd better find out what's going on.

* * *

"So, that guy Lanie and I helped catch was... possessed?"

"Not in so many words," the guy with the eyebrows -- Artie -- says.

"We prefer 'whammied,'" Claudia adds around a mouthful of oatmeal cookie.

"By David Berkowitz's _pen_?"

"The one he used to write his letters, yes."

"And this happens a lot." Alexis isn't sure whether she's asking a question or not, but Artie answers it anyway.

"Well, not _this_ specifically. Though Florence 42 is almost entirely full of items belonging to serial killers. Anyway, it's better to show you than to tell. Come with me. I'll give you the tour while we get that pen shelved."

* * *

Okay. Wow. Suddenly all the time she's spent watching Doctor Who with her father seems like research.

Cool.

* * *

It isn't quite as expansive as the Warehouse, but Alexis still suspects that Leena's place is also larger on the inside than on the outside. She drops her bags off in her room -- a nice cozy one with an eastern exposure -- and joins Leena on the patio for tea.

"You'll have to be quiet," Leena says. "Myka and Helena just got back from Australia a couple hours ago. They just spent twenty-six hours on a plane with Ned Kelly's iron armor, so they're pretty beat. Pete and Steve are in Las Vegas. We don't know exactly what they're looking for yet, but it's only affecting women, so that's why they're paired off this time."

"They're the other agents?"

"Yes," Leena says. "You know, you remind me of Myka a little bit. You have a similar kind of awareness about you. Your aura looks a lot like hers."

Alexis isn't sure she believes in auras, but she suspects that as she spends more time here, the number of things she doesn't believe in will approach zero.

* * *

Even given all she's seen, it's hard to believe that the "Helena" who Leena had mentioned is _the_ H.G. Wells. Her first instinct is to call her dad and tell him about it, but Myka warns her against it.

"If you want to make him your one," she tells her, "that's fine. But speaking from experience, you don't want to make any other big life decisions right now. I don't recommend saying anything you can't un-say to him right now."

"What, there's no artifact for that?" Alexis asks. It's mostly a joke; even if she hasn't gone out on an actual assignment yet, she's heard plenty of stories about Pete touching things he shouldn't. She's not about to go through the Warehouse without gloves, let alone use artifacts for personal gain.

She can't place the look on Myka's face. It's something not quite like pain.

"Nothing that isn't more trouble than it's worth to use," Helena says.

And she has a point. Her dad is torn up enough about her moving to South Dakota that it's probably best to wait until he calms down a bit, anyway.

Besides, if she tells him what exactly her new job entails, he won't text her nearly as many entertaining theories.

A few moments of almost awkward silence pass in the room.

"I don't think I've read your father's body of work," Helena says. It's obvious to Alexis that she's changing the subject, but she doesn't mind. "What does he write, exactly?"

Not five minutes later, Alexis manages to promise one signed set of Richard Castle's books to the B&B's library and another to Myka's father. ("He's not a fan as far as I know," she tells Alexis, "but he has this _collection_.")

* * *

"You have no idea how glad I am to not be the baby agent anymore," Claudia says on their first assignment together. "I mean, I've got two years of Warehouse experience on Steve, but he's like seven years older than I am, and that kinda kills the whole 'senior agent' vibe after a while. Plus, he hasn't let me drive his car since that time I got whammied by the original fuzzy dice."

"Does... do things like that happen a lot?" Alexis asks. "Should I expect to be turned into a puddle of goo or zapped into the fourth dimension or have my mind taken over by an artifact every week?"

"Well, you're not a real agent until an artifact's tried to kill you. Not gonna lie, this is a dangerous job, and a big reason why we hired you is because it helps spread the danger around a bit. But we're all very good at what we do around here, and you will be too. Cops have Kevlar, we have purple things and each other."

Alexis nods.

"Oh, and by the way, Artie might show up while we're out. Try not to take it personally. He wouldn't send you out if he didn't trust you. He's just a mother hen, and he probably won't be able to resist the temptation since we're just going up to Billings."

"Okay," Alexis replies. "So how do you know a ping when it comes up?"

"There's this whole set of algorithms. Not really easy to explain on the fly, but I could show you later, if you want."

Computer programming has never been Alexis' thing, but she's really kind of interested now. "That sounds great."

* * *

When they get back from Montana a few days later, there are two guys waiting for them.

Claudia double-parks her car and practically launches herself out the door, and before Alexis has even unbuckled her seatbelt, Claudia is hugging one of them like it's been months instead of days since they've seen each other.

Alexis gets out of the car, and the guy on the right waves at her.

His smile reminds her of her father.

"So you're the new girl," he says. "Alexis, right? Good job snagging that pen. Artie told us all about it."

"And we have Jim Henson's sketchbook in a static bag in the back. Are you Pete?"

"Yep," he replies. "And that's Steve. Claudia brought him back from the dead a few years ago, so she thinks she owns him now."

Upon hearing this, Claudia breaks her grip on her friend to smack Pete on the shoulder.

Steve smiles and extends his hand for Alexis to shake.

It's the first time Alexis thinks that this place might become as much _home_ as New York.

**Author's Note:**

> I may expand on this universe later, depending on whether that's the muse biting my ankles or just a hungry cat.


End file.
